Wild Justice (Nadia Stafford 3)

He tensed as if he, too, would rather avoid that word. Then his face mottled as red as his hair, and he clenched the coffee cup in his hand. "You were a child. You were just a goddamn child and that--"

"Go on," I said. "Please. Tell me what happened. So Dr. Foster confirmed it . . ."

Neil nodded. "He did, but you wouldn't. You insisted you were okay. You wanted him to go to the cabin to help Amy. He said you couldn't process the experience . . . I don't agree. I think you were confused and embarrassed, and you didn't want to talk about it to an old man. All you could think about was Amy. You hadn't forgotten what happened. You were just putting it aside. And then your dad called and . . ." He inhaled sharply, gaze emptying, as if lost in those memories.

"Amy was dead."

He nodded. "We didn't tell you. As terrible as that news was, your dad's main concern was still you. When he came back, that's what he wanted to deal with, before he told you. Except you wouldn't talk about the rape. You knew something had happened to Amy, and you were hysterical, and you insisted nothing happened to you. Doc Foster said if you wanted to block it out, we should let you."

"If I wanted to forget it, then it seemed best forgotten."

"It wasn't like that. It just . . . got like that. Your dad feared if we covered it up and you remembered later, you'd think you'd done something wrong. He talked to Father Myers, which didn't help. It really wasn't the good Father's area of expertise, and he was more than happy to agree with the doctor. Clearly God was granting you the boon of forgetfulness, and we shouldn't interfere. Your mother was right onside with them. Strongly and strenuously onside."

Because she hadn't wanted the shame of admitting her daughter had been raped.

Neil continued, "It wasn't swept under the rug, Nadia. It was hashed over and over and over. It was a family matter, and it was a police matter, too. You know what rape trials are like for the victims. This was the eighties. It was so much worse."

"And Dad didn't want that for me."

"Would any father?" Neil looked me in the eye. "He was still never comfortable with that decision. He made us all swear that if you said anything--anything--to suggest you remembered being raped, we had to tell him. He even made your mother swear. I heard him yelling at her next door. It was the first time I ever heard him raise his voice to her. He said that if you ever remembered anything, and she didn't tell him, he'd leave her. Take you and leave."

There are times when I think my father and I would have both been better off if he'd done exactly as he threatened. But divorce wasn't a real option at the time, not when you lived in a small town and had children. Dad had buckled down and made the best of it. That's what he'd done here, too. Everyone told him that if I'd "forgotten" the rape, then it was better for me to go with that. I'd forget it. Which I had.

I told Neil that I understood. That wasn't entirely true, but it's what he needed to hear. He'd been barely more than a kid himself, doing as he was told by his family and his superiors. He couldn't be faulted for that.

"The real problem," I said, "isn't how the cover-up affected me. It's how it affected the case. If I admitted I'd been raped, that would have changed everything. They couldn't blame the victim nearly as easily with me."

"Is that what you think? Shit." Neil shook his head and leaned over the table, braced on his forearms. "We made mistakes, but refusing to let you testify was not one of them. Sure, the defense argued that Amy went there willingly, hoping for more than a kiss on the cheek. They played the bad-girl card, but she was fourteen--there's only so far that goes." He paused. "How much do you know about the case? I seemed to remember you were there for part of the trial."

"I was, mostly at the beginning. Dad said he wanted me to see justice done." Justice for me, I realized now. In case I did remember what happened, he wanted me to see my rapist go to jail. "As the trial wore on, I guess he realized justice wasn't coming, so he kept me home. As for the details? I've only seen a summary of the case notes. The full file would have been . . . too much."

"So what you know is based mostly on what you heard. Gossip. A cautionary tale about the bad girl who got raped and murdered, and a killer who walked free because of it." Neil shook his head. "That's not what happened, Nadia."

"But if he could have gone to jail for raping me, it would have got him off the streets--"

"He wouldn't have. Your mother got rid of your clothing, which was the only forensic evidence. Your dad flipped out when he heard that, but it was too late. There was . . . physical evidence, I'm sure, but by the time we realized the case against Aldrich wasn't airtight, it was long gone. It would have been the worst kind of rape trial--the victim's word versus the accused. You'd have been put through hell for no reason. Aldrich still would have walked."

I stayed quiet after he'd finished.

"I mean it, Nadia. I'm not saying that to make you feel better. There is no way your dad would have let your rapist walk if he could have stopped that. Hell, when Aldrich did walk, they had to whisk him away, under protective custody, for fear we'd retaliate."

And my uncle still tracked him down. No one had forgotten.

"There's a lot you didn't know, Nadia. If you want the case files, I can get them. But Amy did get her justice, even if it came twenty years late."

CHAPTER 21

Iclimbed into the passenger seat and put an old travel mug in the holder and cookies on the armrest. "Neil insisted on feeding and caffeinating you."

"Huh. Relative of yours?"

"Apparently."

Jack lifted a hand to Neil, still on the porch, and then backed the car out. When we reached a four-way stop, he glanced over.

"Everything okay?"

I nodded. "It helped. I'm glad I went."